城市騙徒，感性誠懇，十九世紀美國偵探小說：以艾德加．愛倫．坡為例

Abstract

城市騙徒，感性誠懇，十九世紀美國偵探小說：以艾德加．愛倫．坡為例 我在本計畫中意欲以「城市騙徒」及「感性誠懇」這兩個主題為討論架構，以艾德加．愛倫．坡的理性偵探小說為主要文本，解析十九世紀中葉美國偵探小說之源起及發展。根據Karen Halttunen所言，在人口流動快速的現代城市裡，層出不窮的騙徒令十九世紀美國人憂心忡忡，只因很難判斷陌生人的誠懇與否。她認為，為了因應這個難題，十九世紀上半葉的中產階級遂發展出一套以「誠懇相待」的感性文化為基礎的居家儀式和規範，用外在表現來證明自身內在品格的純正可信。然而時間一久，這種儀式及規範卻又容易淪為制式「演出」，到頭來與騙徒之道看似殊途、實屬同歸。故中葉之後，以家為主要場域的「感性誠懇文化」逐漸沒落，被講究時尚、形象、個人主義及自我表現的「演戲文化」所取代。 我認為坡的理性偵探杜邦身上，處處可見「城市騙徒」及「感性誠懇文化」的影子：他一方面與騙徒宛如雙生，另一方面卻又呼應著感性誠懇文化的理念。追根究柢，實因騙徒現象和感性文化本就有互通之處，尤其是兩者與「演戲」的密不可分。而理性偵探的有趣之處，即在於他能讓人觀察到狡詐騙徒和誠懇感性之間的複雜交錯，以及公領域（騙徒的主要活動地）與私領域（感性文化的主要場域）之間的曖昧不明。

Nineteenth-Century U.S. Detective Fiction in Conversation with Urban Confidence Men and the Cult of Sentimental Sincerity: Edgar Allan Poe as a Case Study In this project, I would like use the idea of urban confidence men and the culture of sentimental sincerity as the primary framework to discuss the rise and development of mid-nineteenth-century U.S. detective fiction, as exemplified by Edgar Allan Poe’s famous ratiocinative detective series. According to Karen Halttunen, confidence men posed a serious threat to nineteenth-century Americans living in the open, urban society because it was hard to judge if a stranger was sincere or not, or in other words, if he was a confidence man. As a result, during the first half of the century middle-class urbanites began to develop an intricate set of domestic rituals and rules based on the ideal of sentimental sincerity, so that one could prove one’s inner sincerity by fulfilling all these ordained rituals and rules. Yet as time went by, this kind of outward “proof” could backfire by degenerating into ritualized, customary “performance” and turned to look very similar to the one performed by confidence men. Thus after 1850, the cult of sentimental sincerity was gradually replaced by the culture of theatricality, which emphasized fashion, images, individualism, and self-display. I argue that Poe’s characterization of the ratiocinative detective Dupin is deeply intertwined with both the urban confidence man and the culture of sentimental sincerity: he is the double of the villain confidence man in the story, and he also exemplifies the fulfillment of the ideal of sentimental sincerity; that is, he succeeds in making everything become transparent. In my opinion, Dupin can ambivalently identify with both the confidence man and the ideal of sentimental sincerity because these two are in fact related to each other, especially in terms of their profound implication with the idea of theatricality. What is interesting about Dupin is exactly that one can observe this kind of implication through him as well as the ambiguous complication between the public realm, the confidence man’s habitat, and the private sphere, where the culture of sentimental sincerity abides.